I heard that same argument 5, 10 and 15 years ago. 4GLs were going to put programmers out of business as non-technical folks were going to be rolling out full-scale solutions in minutes...
I'm sure that programming skill and competency and efficiency will continue to increase in all countries, but so will the demand for these services as the countries themselves need this type of work as they develop...
So, I'm not going to worry too much about the sky falling just yet.
Yeah, they'll stop making Visors one day... color me stunned. Sony stopped making 10" B&W TV sets at some point too...
The Treo is a nifty little device which is an evolution of the Visor. Integrating a phone makes sense, integrating wireless makes sense. If Handspring decides not to make a device that *only* does PDA type functionality, that's probably a good business decision. Sure they're still be a market for a limited device like that, it just won't be Handspring making it. But as the technology changes, and component prices come down, it'll be generally expected that a device have more and more features. Handspring is just acknowledging that fact.
Why don't *YOU* pay attention? The earthlink service is a FIXED wireless which requires a recieving unit to a FIXED location, like a home or business... it's an alternative to DSL/Cable.
(There *is* a redundant article posted about this today, but this ain't it...)
This is 802.11b wireless... The DEVICE is wireless and NOT FIXED...
I've heard you interviewed several times, you've asserted that today's Music industry is deliberately trying to impede technological advancement by digging their heels in against new delivery technologies such as Napster, P2P networks, MP3.com, etc. You've likened this to the Horse and Carriage industry fighting against the adoption of the automobile.
While I agree with you that these industries are obviously resistant to these sorts of technologies, I can't make the leap and say that they are stifling the technology itself. As proponents for these 'file sharing' technologies will tell you, they are content neutral. The copyright owners are resisting having *their* copyrighted material copied and distributed freely and without compensation. I don't see that they are against the technology per se.
If the only viable way that these technologies are able to develop (i.e. get funding, have sufficient network externalities to be useful as a sharing network, etc) is on the backs of the copying and trading of copyrighted material, then maybe there is no substantially non-infringing use for them. Sure, you could come up with 1000 *theorhetical* uses for the technology, but only one realistic one, which also happens to be based on infringement.
With all that said, I've burned my share of Napster/Morpheus/KaZaA mp3s, and am damn glad that VCRs weren't smothered at birth, etc. But I'm having a really hard time reconciling the two views, and when I try to argue against the copyright holders, my two solid arguments are:
1.) Copyright law has morphed considerably from what the Framer's originally intended and is wildly out of control
and
2.) I want a lot of free music.
The problem with these arguments is that one is arcane, and doesn't resound with too many folks and the other is, well... anyway...
for about 5 years from now, after they've had time to excavate more.
My wife and I went to Italy on our honeymoon in March and toured Pompeii. It truly is humbling to stand in the middle of this city. All at once it gives you a sense of 1) the fleeting nature of life 2) the complete and total lack of significance that the moment in time that we occupy right now has and 3) wonder at the way civilization has changed in the past few thousand years. I tend very easily to lose any sort of perspective on my place in the universe, visiting historical treasures such as these have the ability to show you a much broader and more complete picture of the world and your place in it...
I agree with the point that it doesn't matter, but your point on WinCE is dated...
A year ago I would have agreed with you, however I've converted to the new Jornada 568, and while it's still on the slightly expensive side, it's freaking brilliant. It can recognize Graffiti so it was a simple tranisition for me, and the apps are great.
Yes, it's a resource hog, but the equipment is getting powerful enough that it runs without a hitch. PocketPC 2002 is a very nice OS, and the integration with my day to day organizer/email program Outlook is seamless. yes, it's all Windows-centric, but sometimes that's OK. Considering my office environment is Windows-centric whether I like it or not, this fits in perfectly. I've got a Wi-Fi CF card in it so I can roam around the office with email and a web browser at my fingertips at all times... and the browser *works*... in fact it works well to render "normal" sites, it does a great job of on the fly adjusting without requiring a stupid WAP gateway. I had Omnisky on my Palm Vx and frankly the anywhere connectivity was nice, it pretty much was too klunky to use effectivly, plus my mail app crashed constantly. I also had a blackberry for a while and the email integration was dead-on, it was a one trick pony... the net access on my Jornada has come in handy more times than I can count.
So... as soon as Ricochet is revived, I'm golden, until then, I think MSoft has got it right finally...
I remember when *my* star was that age, it was expanding as such a rapid rate, burning through hydrogen like there was no tomorrow... Heh... I can remember this time when Sol and a few of his buddies were hanging out in a bad part of the galaxy, and this black hole was trying to get them suck a nebulae. ha! I'll never forget that... ah... whew... guess you had to be there.... heh...
Nothing, NOTHING, NOTHING is perfect. Our govenment, a system designed to regulate, stabilize, and *serve* people is far from perfect. However, I challenge you to come up with something better. Sure, you can pick a particular instance and point out a better way to handle a situation, but taken as a whole, as these things *must* be taken, you will not find a finer example of how to structure a society. Does it have warts? Hell yes. But the beauty is, as all good programmers should recognize, is in its elegant simplicity at its very core. yeah, we've built a lot of cruft on top of that core, but it's adaptive, resilient, and most of all it ultimately does the job it was designed to do. Make sure that our core ideals as a people are protected and to make sure we don't poke our collective eyes out. The debate that goes on here, while many nuances will be lost as it 'trickles up', the important stuff will eventually bubble to the top. If it isn't important enough to enough people it won't be acted on... if it is, it'll eventually work itself out. It may be slow, but it will happen. We may err too far on one side or the other, but eventually everything balances to the appropriate middle...
Frankly, I'm not sure why this comment is Insightful, or on point for that matter...
Microsoft's onerous licensing practices continue to sink to new lows, however this merely points to the fact that it may take longer for some of these provisions to be widely applicable (and honestly who believes this one will survive the PR nightmare this is going to generate anyway...), but folks continue to use and upgrade Microsoft products, just at a slower pace than the 'softies would like...
Don't kid yourself, stunts like this won't bring Microsoft down, no matter how much you might hope that it would...
So my question is, are these still going to be available for purchase, and hopefully at a discount? I tried to go to the site, and the "Buy Now" link is dead.
If these go on sale at anything like a reasonable price (I wasn't willing to pay $499), I'd be all over buying a few of these to sprinkle around the house.
While I could probably go just as cheap with a refurb. PC and Linux, the compact nature of these devices is *so* appealing for having in the kitchen, bedroom, guestroom, etc. for quick email, surfing, reference...
Anyone know where I can snag one (or three) of these cheap??
"Microsoft had also said that if the appeals court didn't put the case on hold, it would put the public's faith in the judicial system in jeopardy."
Ooohh... so many responses... so little time...
1. Because having a multi-year, hugely expensive, legal c*rcle-j*rk will make us all feel *so* much better about our jurisprudence system...
2. Gee... Thanks M$! I always knew that you guys were all a big bunch of softies, that had my best interest at heart the whole time! I'll sleep so much better tonight knowing that you guys are looking out for the little guy:-*
3. And God knows that wouldn't be the first time something to do with M$ is put on hold indefinitely...
it's not just about file sharing! That's a common P2P myth and misconception. File systems and sharing are about the least of where P2P becomes useful. That can be a component, but the distribution of resources across a heterogeneous network, and the ability to free an application from a central authority are much more interesting side-effects of P2P architectures.
In any event, building some sort of framework can be useful. If you take this logic and extrapolate it, there was really no reason to advance at all... once there is a critical mass of need for a given set of functionality, it's useful to build a abstracted service to provide it...
Freenet seems to be *much* more about anonymous and safe dissemination of information without the fear of censorship or forgery. While it *can* be used as a general P2P service layer, it's not exactly designed to be the pipes under any old P2P app.
Jxta, on the other hand is shooting to be just that, a general services layer.
Big difference. Both may flourish but for different reasons. (IMHO Freenet is a very specific demonstration of a concept, but won't take off as anything much more than that...)
That's not neccesarily the case... true that things are a bit vague at this point, but what P2P frameworks are all about is providing some basic level of services to build upon.
Keys being that most P2P apps need some of the same basic things. in my simplistic terms:
Authentication, Security & Trust, a Capacity for dealing with a changing and non-stable network, some sort of common messaging format, etc. There's more, but I'm tired of typing.
if Jxta can provide these types of services in a useable way, then it can be very powerful...
anyway... a can of soup can be very powerful too if used properly... it all comes in the implementation. but that's my.02c
In an effort to save everyone's time, I propose that all of the quasi-sports that have slowly wormed their way into the olympics be combined into one event. We'll call it Splunge. The rules are as follows (sort of...):
Contestants compete in a giant chess board shaped pool, each team representing the appropriate chess piece (pawns, knights, queens etc.). Teams alternate turns with their rhythmic gymnastic ribbons fluttering non-stop as they try to get the ball in the other team's net with table tennis paddles. Equestrian referees with badminton raquets shall penalize players who foot fault or allow the ball hit the sand. The match shall be declared upon completion of a flawless SDE (Synchronized Drowning Event) by either team.
Anyone with me? I say we petetion the IOC for recognition of this event...
Well, the sites linked to in this post are all currently getting the living hell/.'d out of them... By just drawing attention to the issue, the evil, bogus domains can't be registered right now. Slashdot saves the day!
OK, this is slightly OT, but I took my kid to see Atlantis for Father's Day (which I actually found quite enjoyable), and in the scene with Milo and the benefactor of his voyage to discover the lost city, the guy has a giant fish tank with coelacanths (coelacanthii? coelacanthuses?) swimming around in the background... I thought it was a nice touch... in any event...
Slashdot Mirror
I heard that same argument 5, 10 and 15 years ago. 4GLs were going to put programmers out of business as non-technical folks were going to be rolling out full-scale solutions in minutes...
I'm sure that programming skill and competency and efficiency will continue to increase in all countries, but so will the demand for these services as the countries themselves need this type of work as they develop...
So, I'm not going to worry too much about the sky falling just yet.
Yeah, they'll stop making Visors one day... color me stunned. Sony stopped making 10" B&W TV sets at some point too...
The Treo is a nifty little device which is an evolution of the Visor. Integrating a phone makes sense, integrating wireless makes sense. If Handspring decides not to make a device that *only* does PDA type functionality, that's probably a good business decision. Sure they're still be a market for a limited device like that, it just won't be Handspring making it. But as the technology changes, and component prices come down, it'll be generally expected that a device have more and more features. Handspring is just acknowledging that fact.
It's *Philips* NOT Phillips, the poster got it right, but almost without exception everyone else is using the superfluous 'l' in the name...
I know it's anal, but there's a big difference between Philips and Phillips... or Phillips for that matter...
this is not the same type of service...
Why don't *YOU* pay attention? The earthlink service is a FIXED wireless which requires a recieving unit to a FIXED location, like a home or business... it's an alternative to DSL/Cable.
(There *is* a redundant article posted about this today, but this ain't it...)
This is 802.11b wireless... The DEVICE is wireless and NOT FIXED...
-t
I've heard you interviewed several times, you've asserted that today's Music industry is deliberately trying to impede technological advancement by digging their heels in against new delivery technologies such as Napster, P2P networks, MP3.com, etc. You've likened this to the Horse and Carriage industry fighting against the adoption of the automobile.
While I agree with you that these industries are obviously resistant to these sorts of technologies, I can't make the leap and say that they are stifling the technology itself. As proponents for these 'file sharing' technologies will tell you, they are content neutral. The copyright owners are resisting having *their* copyrighted material copied and distributed freely and without compensation. I don't see that they are against the technology per se.
If the only viable way that these technologies are able to develop (i.e. get funding, have sufficient network externalities to be useful as a sharing network, etc) is on the backs of the copying and trading of copyrighted material, then maybe there is no substantially non-infringing use for them. Sure, you could come up with 1000 *theorhetical* uses for the technology, but only one realistic one, which also happens to be based on infringement.
With all that said, I've burned my share of Napster/Morpheus/KaZaA mp3s, and am damn glad that VCRs weren't smothered at birth, etc. But I'm having a really hard time reconciling the two views, and when I try to argue against the copyright holders, my two solid arguments are:
1.) Copyright law has morphed considerably from what the Framer's originally intended and is wildly out of control
and
2.) I want a lot of free music.
The problem with these arguments is that one is arcane, and doesn't resound with too many folks and the other is, well... anyway...
Help me Prof. Lessig, you're my only hope...
Be careful, emulating Windows inside of Linux on Windows is what killed the dinosaurs...
Don't we ever learn?
for about 5 years from now, after they've had time to excavate more.
My wife and I went to Italy on our honeymoon in March and toured Pompeii. It truly is humbling to stand in the middle of this city. All at once it gives you a sense of 1) the fleeting nature of life 2) the complete and total lack of significance that the moment in time that we occupy right now has and 3) wonder at the way civilization has changed in the past few thousand years. I tend very easily to lose any sort of perspective on my place in the universe, visiting historical treasures such as these have the ability to show you a much broader and more complete picture of the world and your place in it...
I can't wait to visit Nola...
I agree with the point that it doesn't matter, but your point on WinCE is dated...
A year ago I would have agreed with you, however I've converted to the new Jornada 568, and while it's still on the slightly expensive side, it's freaking brilliant. It can recognize Graffiti so it was a simple tranisition for me, and the apps are great.
Yes, it's a resource hog, but the equipment is getting powerful enough that it runs without a hitch. PocketPC 2002 is a very nice OS, and the integration with my day to day organizer/email program Outlook is seamless. yes, it's all Windows-centric, but sometimes that's OK. Considering my office environment is Windows-centric whether I like it or not, this fits in perfectly. I've got a Wi-Fi CF card in it so I can roam around the office with email and a web browser at my fingertips at all times... and the browser *works*... in fact it works well to render "normal" sites, it does a great job of on the fly adjusting without requiring a stupid WAP gateway. I had Omnisky on my Palm Vx and frankly the anywhere connectivity was nice, it pretty much was too klunky to use effectivly, plus my mail app crashed constantly. I also had a blackberry for a while and the email integration was dead-on, it was a one trick pony... the net access on my Jornada has come in handy more times than I can count.
So... as soon as Ricochet is revived, I'm golden, until then, I think MSoft has got it right finally...
God, I hope not. that's part of the... dare I say it... brilliance of the Tick... he has no origin and should stay that way.
I remember when *my* star was that age, it was expanding as such a rapid rate, burning through hydrogen like there was no tomorrow... Heh... I can remember this time when Sol and a few of his buddies were hanging out in a bad part of the galaxy, and this black hole was trying to get them suck a nebulae. ha! I'll never forget that... ah... whew... guess you had to be there.... heh...
Oh well... screw all y'all... It was *funny*...
losers.
oh please.
Nothing, NOTHING, NOTHING is perfect. Our govenment, a system designed to regulate, stabilize, and *serve* people is far from perfect. However, I challenge you to come up with something better. Sure, you can pick a particular instance and point out a better way to handle a situation, but taken as a whole, as these things *must* be taken, you will not find a finer example of how to structure a society. Does it have warts? Hell yes. But the beauty is, as all good programmers should recognize, is in its elegant simplicity at its very core. yeah, we've built a lot of cruft on top of that core, but it's adaptive, resilient, and most of all it ultimately does the job it was designed to do. Make sure that our core ideals as a people are protected and to make sure we don't poke our collective eyes out. The debate that goes on here, while many nuances will be lost as it 'trickles up', the important stuff will eventually bubble to the top. If it isn't important enough to enough people it won't be acted on... if it is, it'll eventually work itself out. It may be slow, but it will happen. We may err too far on one side or the other, but eventually everything balances to the appropriate middle...
if only other things worked this well...
Frankly, I'm not sure why this comment is Insightful, or on point for that matter...
Microsoft's onerous licensing practices continue to sink to new lows, however this merely points to the fact that it may take longer for some of these provisions to be widely applicable (and honestly who believes this one will survive the PR nightmare this is going to generate anyway...), but folks continue to use and upgrade Microsoft products, just at a slower pace than the 'softies would like...
Don't kid yourself, stunts like this won't bring Microsoft down, no matter how much you might hope that it would...
-c
So my question is, are these still going to be available for purchase, and hopefully at a discount? I tried to go to the site, and the "Buy Now" link is dead.
If these go on sale at anything like a reasonable price (I wasn't willing to pay $499), I'd be all over buying a few of these to sprinkle around the house.
While I could probably go just as cheap with a refurb. PC and Linux, the compact nature of these devices is *so* appealing for having in the kitchen, bedroom, guestroom, etc. for quick email, surfing, reference...
Anyone know where I can snag one (or three) of these cheap??
Ooohh... so many responses... so little time...
1. Because having a multi-year, hugely expensive, legal c*rcle-j*rk will make us all feel *so* much better about our jurisprudence system...
2. Gee... Thanks M$! I always knew that you guys were all a big bunch of softies, that had my best interest at heart the whole time! I'll sleep so much better tonight knowing that you guys are looking out for the little guy
3. And God knows that wouldn't be the first time something to do with M$ is put on hold indefinitely...
"anyone? anyone?... D-O-O Economics... Voodoo Economics..."
-c
In any event, building some sort of framework can be useful. If you take this logic and extrapolate it, there was really no reason to advance at all... once there is a critical mass of need for a given set of functionality, it's useful to build a abstracted service to provide it...
Jxta, on the other hand is shooting to be just that, a general services layer.
Big difference. Both may flourish but for different reasons. (IMHO Freenet is a very specific demonstration of a concept, but won't take off as anything much more than that...)
Keys being that most P2P apps need some of the same basic things. in my simplistic terms:
Authentication, Security & Trust, a Capacity for dealing with a changing and non-stable network, some sort of common messaging format, etc. There's more, but I'm tired of typing.
if Jxta can provide these types of services in a useable way, then it can be very powerful...
anyway... a can of soup can be very powerful too if used properly... it all comes in the implementation. but that's my .02c
Contestants compete in a giant chess board shaped pool, each team representing the appropriate chess piece (pawns, knights, queens etc.). Teams alternate turns with their rhythmic gymnastic ribbons fluttering non-stop as they try to get the ball in the other team's net with table tennis paddles. Equestrian referees with badminton raquets shall penalize players who foot fault or allow the ball hit the sand. The match shall be declared upon completion of a flawless SDE (Synchronized Drowning Event) by either team.
Anyone with me? I say we petetion the IOC for recognition of this event...
Doesn't this violate the Prime Directive?
If a registrar's site falls in the woods...
the ICANNberg Uncertainly Principle?
OK, this is slightly OT, but I took my kid to see Atlantis for Father's Day (which I actually found quite enjoyable), and in the scene with Milo and the benefactor of his voyage to discover the lost city, the guy has a giant fish tank with coelacanths (coelacanthii? coelacanthuses?) swimming around in the background... I thought it was a nice touch... in any event...